Replaced Devs On Xbox Game Pass: Developers Should Grab This Opportunity And Never Look Back

Must be disappointing news for some in Twitter. Accept our sincere condolences. And apply some burnol as well.

Does Gamepass get too big to where discoverability becomes an issue? I think Xbox will do a good job curating the list of games, but we will see.

@Bdbrady I think Microsoft has a good rhythm going when it comes to adding and removing titles that there is always room to focus on these indies. Microsoft just needs to keep that up.

Even when the Zenimax games dropped on Game Pass seemingly all at once, indie titles still didn't get left in the dust.

Honestly, I think Game Pass is probably the best place for indie visibility right now. It used to be the Switch eShop, but Nintendo really needs to fix it's eShop as visibility is getting really rough over there.

I don't think Sony is too popular among indie devs right now either.

I like how gamepass treats indie reveals like they're triple A games. That kind of recognition and treatment is bound to make any developer blush.

@Senua I don’t think anyone has questioned that it’s good for indies or did I miss something?

The bigger the game you’re making is the less likely GamePass is a good option seems to make sense.

It's a good statement, but I think the "it's a good marketing placement for indies" does match with the concerns critics have with Game Pass. It needs to be a valuable, profitable monetization mechanism for indies and AAA alike, not just a marketing demo service to fuel game purchases. If it becomes a paid demo participation program mostly about indie exposure, it would lose most of its luster over time.

@NEStalgia as someone gets way more value for money out of GP than say your average Joe I struggle to see how it can be profitable, not that I'm complaining.

On the flip side though I have two friends who have been subscribed to the service since launch like myself but I think the only games they have played on it are Gears 4 & 5. Would be interesting to know subscriber numbers vs player activity if those sort of stats exist.

Once MS start churning out the AAA exclusives (Halo, Forza, Starfield) then I feel the subscriber numbers will only increase and the rotation of Indie games on there will see a lot of purchases made to games that are set to leave the service.

I myself am spending more money on games than I used to because of the GP lies in my head 🤣 "Well I've not payed anything for the game so may aswell buy the DLC" I used to be very stingy when buying DLC but now I've got no issue buying season passes and I'm sure a lot of other consumers will be doing the same.

I do hope GP is profitable and sustainable as MS keeps telling us, just be nice to see some numbers on paper as proof to show the naysayers.

@Bdbrady I think that Gamepass advertises its games pretty well. Having the app installed on my phone I always recieve notifications on whats coming next. When I open up gamepass on my xbox I always go check the upcoming titles first and when the tilte launches, Gamepass on my xbox homescreen keeps showing me the recently launched title so I don't think discoverability is an issue for upcoming titles, might be an issue for a title that has been sitting there for too long tho.

It seems like a financial no-brainer: take a large upfront payment for Gamepass on your risky indie property that might not break even and then use the publicity from that to then eventually port the title to rival platforms and get more sales.

@SacredPYRO Haha, yeah. Contrary to the naysayers, I have every confidence GP is profitable for Microsoft. If not very profitable. But I worry that interviews like this imply the naysayers are right about how profitable it is for devs. For GP to live up to it's promise it has to function as an alternate means of monetization that can fund the game development and the vendor, not just a promo tool to generate interest and sales. As an alternate monetization method it could really spread the costs of gaming across the market rather than trying to milk early-adopter whales to subsidize the rest of the market, which is generally what happens in the traditional "box office" model, which is leading, like in Sony and Nintendo's case to a two tiered "premium and aftermarket" model. Kind of like "unlimited internet" being a flat price (back when that was a new idea in the 90's) so that gamers downing quake mods and online matches were paying the same price as grandma checking email twice a week, rather than charging grandma $1 a use and charging the quake gamer $200/mo. Everyone paid their $20 and was happy.

If Game Pass isn't really profitable for devs and ends up used as a marketing promo tool to generate interest and sales, it literally becomes a platform to pay money to play demos, which becomes the opposite of a value. So I think it's important to see how the monetization really works out for this. Rockstar clearly uses it as a literal paid demo. They'll drop games for a few weeks and pull them. If indies are basically trading free games as marketing devices....that's maybe an ill omen.

Though we also don't know what the monetization is, and these guys as a really small outfit that need to build market may be offered a pitance to basically cover marketing they could never afford on their own, while Square-Enix might be milking Outriders for fortunes they don't have to report to the devs and pay up.... As it is, I love GP, but if it descends into "play first party games and lots of demos for $180 a year".....I could change my mind alter.

I think the key is, with Game Pass or without, on average, I don't think the average player is going to change their spending habits. It's less about capturing more spend per player, and more about capturing a greater percentage of entertainment spend per player. Most people will spend the same amount, roughly, on entertainment, no matter what. Charging $70 per game isn't going to make them spend $100 extra a year, it's going to make them buy less games. The player that spends $400 a year on new games isn't likely just going to spend $500 on games because of price increases, they'll just drop a game they would have bought. Similarly those of us who spend...more....than that aren't necessarily going to drop gaming spend to $100 because lots of things are on Game Pass, we're going to blow $400 on games anyway, but get to play a ton more different game in the process. We have finite entertainment time, so there's a limit on consumption, and to MS, it doesn't matter if we play 100 hours of Battlefield in a month, or 100 hours of 200 different indie games. We paid our money and played our time. How we divide the time doesn't cost them any more or less, they captured the same spend either way, so it's very much win-win to offer the variety as a value.

I liken games with GP to an amusement park. If the park is running and they sold you the ability to ride one roller coaster over and over all day for $70, or if they sold you general admission and let you ride any of the rides for $70, either way, you give them $70. Either way they're only open 10 hours. Either way, they're running all the rides. It literally gives them no value to sell you access only to the one coaster versus letting you ride anything you want, but it gives you a ton more value to experience several different rides rather than being limited to one. They could "monetize more" by selling access to each of the rides for $70 so that you'd have to pay $140 to ride two different rides, but how many people would pay double the money to double up when they could split that cost between different visits and get their whole value? Plus, while you traverse between rides, you might find a food or souvenir stall to buy from you wouldn't have at the one coaster's station all day. GP is the same. I spend $180 a year. As a big gamer that buys a lot of stuff, I pay more than that and get even more games. But if I were an average gamer, I'd probably spend only $180 or less a year anyway. That's about 2.5 games, so that's actually more than the average gamer. Maybe I'd buy Halo and FH5, the two big big games for the platform. That's $140. And I don't even need Gold. I could spend all year playing those two games, and MS gets $140. Or I could spend $180 and still spend all year playing them....and try a dozen other games for free.....MS doesn't lose a potential dime, and I get more value. And I'll probably by the latest Ubisoft game with the savings.....

For MS it can work exceptionally well. I just hope it works as well for devs....